Namerl stands in front of the assembly hall of Prestige Senior High School. Certainly, there should be a way out of this. This poor girl cannot go home like this. Where did the world go so wrong that teachers will rape students and go scot free? And if the student is pregnant, shouldn’t the said teacher take responsibility? Prestige Senior High School is one of the best schools in country Ahana. It has a population of two thousand three hundred and seventy three; two thousand and one are boys and the rest are girls. Being a new teacher, Namerl has been assigned the position of assistant house mistress of Setu House. Setu; she was told, was the name of the first girls school prefect of the school. Her dedication towards the school even after completion has earned her the honour of being named after the best house of the school. Namerl looks left and right and looks at the girl standing on her far right with her chop box and her trunk by her side.
The poor girl confided in her when Mr. Akwetey raped her. She made a mistake not looking for one of these post contraceptive pills. She had gone straight to the senior house mistress to tell her. The woman told her not to trust these girls as some are very bad. When they do something bad, they blame it on their teachers. Some also tempt their teachers by wearing provocative clothes. They actually change the styles of the uniform sewn for them. Namerl told her again in plain words:
“The girl came and showed me her blood stained undies. The man really raped her. She is at my house, can we please go and send her to the hospital? Namerl said impatiently.
“Huh? To the hospital? Have you thought of the bad name this will give to our school? Who wants all that publicity? We’ll go and see her, if she has problems we can dress her in house attire and send her to a pharmacist to avoid any trouble.”
Namerl could not believe her ears. She felt so wronged that she went to tell the headmaster. He also called Mr. Akwetey in her presence and asked him. The girl had broken down and cried after narrating the story. My Akwetey had sworn by his dead mother that he doesn’t even know her. It is the first he is seeing her. “The guilty man” was written all over his face but all the headmaster said was:
“Well, Miss ‘Namel’ you heard the man, you won’t take the girl’s side as against the teacher? The girl said it was dark, it could be a boy who lured her to Mr. Akwetey’s house, get her some painkillers and let her rest.”
That was how the case ended, apart from hating how the ‘dictator judge’ mentioned her name, she hated more the smirk on the face of the rapist.
Two months has passed and this girl is pregnant and all the disciplinary committee, which she is not a part of, came up with is to let her go and deliver and come for a transfer if she will still be interested after childbirth.
She can only watch from afar as her things are being packed onto the school bus which is taking her to the bus station.
She looks away to blink her tears when she hears her voice;
“Miss Namerl” Cynthia sadly says catching her off guard. She says this through her tears:
“I want to thank you very much for all you did. I know it is not your fault. I cannot be exempted from the blame. When Mr. Akwetey asked me to send the water home for him, I should have gone with a friend because I had heard the rumours. Me going there, and he following, closing the door and forcefully raping me was as a result of my negligence and his ruthlessness, please don’t beat yourself too much. I promise to be someone that many men will bow to in future. I will never let my guard down ever again. I promise you that, so please cheer up and send me away with a smile”
Namerl can do nothing but cry out loud and hug the girl for comfort and assurance.
“I know you are a thoughtful girl but know that it is no crime to trust someone. You are a good girl and it was never your fault. I hope your step mother doesn’t make things difficult for you.”
With the goodbyes said, she sits in the car and its start ends the education of Cynthia at Prestige High School.
Namerl goes to her bungalow seeing as she is not in the mood for teaching. She switches on the television and sees an advert of an NGO which helps girls further their education.
“All you do is sending girls to school, do you even bother to see to their wellbeing and protection until they complete? Is money all that is needed to show care and kindness?” She says and switches off her television. She doesn’t know when she fell asleep but she hears her name being mentioned and someone knocking on her door loudly. She opens to see a girl bleeding so much, she calls the school ambulance and she is rushed to the hospital.
They rush her to the theatre for a D and C. After waiting for an hour and hearing the girl scream so loudly, the doctor comes to tell her the girl tried aborting her pregnancy and nearly lost her life. She succeeded partly so they had to perform a D and C to clear out the rest.
“Oh great! Just what I needed to lift my spirit” Her sarcasm gets to the ears of the doctor who asks again what she meant. She apologises and asks to see the patient. If this gets to the ears of the disciplinary committee (DC) she will be sacked.
“So what made you try such a dangerous thing? Will two wrongs make a right?”
She says angrily.
“I’m sorry Miss Namerl, my friends gave me the pills. I am being taken care of by my boyfriend who died last week. When I was coming to school this term, he told me he had to sleep with me before giving me my fees. My parents died when I was born. I was told my mother died giving birth to me and my father died after hearing that my mother had passed on. My aunt from my father’s side took responsibility but told me learning a trade after junior high is all she could do, so Dauda promised to help me and marry me later. When I found out he died and I was pregnant, I panicked and told my friends and they gave me…”
“They gave you what? What prevented you from coming to me or going to any of the mistresses?”
“I was afraid I will be dragged to the DC and sacked. Especially when the other students asked me to look at what was happening with Cynthia.”
Namerl realises the girl’s fear is genuine but would have still loved that she came to her. She made an exception and told a lie saying she had a problem with her stomach and had to be operated upon.
Mr. Akwetey comes to warn her to be careful with him or face the consequences. Whatever that means, she doesn’t care.
One of the girls give her a tip off on girls who smoke and their hide out. She goes there during midnight and is appalled at what she sees; girls smoking marijuana as though their lives depend on it. Upon seeing her, they start running. She assures them she is not there to harm them. She is here to get to know more about it and help them. She tells them even cigarette smoking has its repercussions and manages to convince some of the boys to seek help.
She works on their counseling, keeps their secrets and nurses them out of their habit.
It’s been two weeks and finally some news cheers her on. One of the girls led a team of students to win the National Science and Maths Quiz. She has made it her business to teach the girls about self-preservation and self defence. Their little tricks of breaking bounds to go to town, some trying to sell themselves for money has abated. Now, Prestige Senior High School is living up to their standards.
Namerl gets furious when she hears Albert’s story. He was raped by a homosexual and all the DC could do was to interrogate and make fun of him without sending him to the counseling unit to help ease his trauma. They sent the homosexual home indefinitely but Frank tells Namerl that the boy screams every night. He sees the boy and sends him to the counseling unit for help.
Namerl also pays attention to the boys, teaching them there is nothing like work for females and work for males. All of them sweep their classes. They take turns in sweeping their class without any complaints.
It’s been a year and Namerl cannot believe what she is hearing. Mr. Akwetey has been operated upon and according to him, Namerl is to blame. One of the girls came into his house and pulled his balls without any provocation. She has been teaching the children to be violent.
The DC have come to the conclusion that she should be transferred to another school because she is a negative influence on the children, especially the girls.
She knows what happened to the man. He wanted to rape Selina. Selina is one of the girls she is helping to quit smoking. She is very strong and aggressive. So when the weak Mr. Akwetey tried her, she beat him up and squeezed his balls so badly.
She accepts their verdict because there is nothing she can do. She knows the DC has an almost all male population and almost all the men have things going with female students. The chicken can never be innocent in the midst of hawks. She just thanks them and leaves.
She is transferred to Mebome Senior High which is a day student in the Mebome village. It’s a good thing there is light here. Wherever I am I can be the best in my field if I put my mind to it.
Barely a week after her transfer, she watches television only to see the shocking news of Prestige Senior High. There has been a demonstration. The children have burnt almost all the structures in the school and have burnt some staff bungalows. It is so bad that the school has closed down indefinitely. A committee has been set up to get to know the cause of the chaos. She feels sorry for this; she knows she had something to do with it. The children had threatened to cause a commotion but she had explained to them why they shouldn’t. It seems they did not listen to her after all.
Students will always be students, take care of them and they are your helpers, push them to the wall and they’ll break the walls and throw them at you. No matter what, she hopes they are able to help rebuild the school so it does not affect their studies.
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © 2014
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